atty1chgo
781 posts
Dec 05, 2013
7:05 PM
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1847
1365 posts
Dec 05, 2013
7:21 PM
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stunning!
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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hoody1942
7 posts
Dec 06, 2013
9:56 AM
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Great. Thanks for the post.
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barbequebob
2396 posts
Dec 07, 2013
8:56 AM
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And here, he's playing straight thru the PA.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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1847
1368 posts
Dec 07, 2013
9:34 AM
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there clearly appears to be
a fender amp in the back ground
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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jbone
1437 posts
Dec 07, 2013
10:32 AM
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Bob, Looking closely at Walter's mic it appears to be an older probably HIGH Z mic. Which means the p.a. was likely a tube driven model. Opinion please?
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http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000386839482
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa7La7yYYeE
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Kingley
3305 posts
Dec 07, 2013
10:37 AM
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Simply the best blues harmonica player that ever lived in my book. Walter had total mastery of the instrument. The percussive qualities to his playing and his variety of tonal expression never ceases to amaze me. I've never heard anyone come anywhere near close to that ever.
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1847
1369 posts
Dec 07, 2013
10:43 AM
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he is singing thru one mic and using
another mic to play thru
it appears to me it is hooked up to the amp on the left
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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wolfkristiansen
248 posts
Dec 07, 2013
11:11 AM
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This old man had the good fortune to see Walter with two of the other greats in this video. The year was 1970, the band was Willie Dixon's Chicago Blues All Stars. In the band were Walter, Lafayette Leake and Willie Dixon.
I can't remember who the other musicians were. I remember it was presented almost as a "lecture" on the blues by Willie Dixon, with plenty of musical examples to demonstrate his points. It was a great show.
By the way, the second song in the video is actually Hard Hearted Woman, a song Walter recorded in 1954. It was his first Chicago record under his own name. Lafayette Leake played piano on the original too. Nice to see them reprising it here.
Interesting, to me, is the fact that Walter played harp in first position in the original, but plays in second position here.
I agree with Kingley. For my taste, he's one of the best blues harmonica players that ever graced this planet.
Not to hijack this thread, but I couldn't help noticing that this great harmonica player plays with his harp tilted neither up nor down. It's horizontal. Have a look at the video from 5:45 onwards. Someone tell Dave Barrett!
Cheers,
wolf kristiansen
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groyster1
2480 posts
Dec 07, 2013
11:56 AM
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thanks for posting this..........it made my day....what tone he had.....
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arzajac
1217 posts
Dec 07, 2013
8:38 PM
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I love the dynamics - every intrument. The softer they play, the more intense it is. And even when they play hard, they are playing softly by today's standards.
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Custom overblow harps. Harmonica service and repair.
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wolfkristiansen
249 posts
Dec 08, 2013
1:28 AM
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I second what arzajac says. Focusing on the harp for a minute-- anyone who thinks they need to blow or suck mightily to make good harp needs to look at and listen to what Walter Horton is doing here. Soft and easy does it, as long as you focus, as Walter does, on dynamics, tone and rhythm.
Life is complicated. Someone forgot to tell James Cotton the BBQ Bob/Horton Rule, but James sounds good nevertheless.
All rules are made to be broken. My preference, musically, is to play soft and subtly as Walter does in this video.
Cheers,
wolf kristiansen
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kudzurunner
4423 posts
Dec 08, 2013
5:21 AM
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Fantastic playing, and worth studying. I second Kingley's two points: he's perfection here in the matter of using the harp for staccato rhythmic emphasis--as a lead instrument, but also as an accompanist--and he's got an inexhaustable array of tonal shadings. And yes, as arzajac and wolf (and others) note, he's got softness, delicacy, combined with incredible strength. He knows exactly where to pitch those blue thirds.
Although BW is often thought of as having a big, massive sound, that's not the sound he works here--although you see a trace or two of it in scattered 1 draws. Here he's working the thin sound; the scratchy, breathy sound. If you close your eyes and pretend that you don't know in advance who this is, you KNOW who it is almost immediately because of that sound.
Everything is completely in control here. There's no wildness, nothing undisciplined or untamed, no huge emotional breakthrough, no "ultimate throwdown." Players who want a harp player to deliver some of the punch or catharsis that contemporary blues guitar players deliver on slow blues won't find that here. This is perfection. He doesn't play a single bad note. He gives you a roadmap for flawless ensemble playing.
I"m fascinated by the particular way that BW swings here. I find it much easier to hear, understand, and copy this kind of swinging harp--not the tone but the placement of the note relative to the beat, with that placement chosen for maximum "kick"--than the very different kind of swing that Dennis Gruenling deploys. Dennis swings like a jazzman; he floats in a way that BW doesn't. I think this is because BW did a lot of duo playing early on with guitarists like Honeyboy Edwards and those guys were looking to the boogie-woogie piano players to anchor their walking bass-note riffs. If you think about BW's style relative to John Lee Williamson, who was the dominant player when he came along, you realize what a leap forward in precision and subtlety BW's style was.
But you also realize how radical and innovative Little Walter's swooping, overdriven style must have sounded compared with BW's style here. Although their styles overlap at points--especially in the matter of the scratchy, breathy stuff; LW, too, could play "light"--Little Walter soars in a way that BW doesn't. Little Walter swings differently--much more like a jazzman--and that's where Dennis gets HIS swing. (Actually, Dennis gets his swing from jazz sax and clarinet players. Dennis used to rave, back in the day, about clarinetist Kenny Davern and how he was copying his licks.) I don't hear much of a horn influence in BW's playing. I hear a lot more piano and rhythm guitar--which is why he sounds so damn good playing with piano and guitar here!
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barbequebob
2397 posts
Dec 09, 2013
11:02 AM
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@Jbone --- When this video was taken, the mikes like the SM57 and SM58 hadn't come out just yet and there was a Lo-z version of the 545 a d 565, which were the predecessors of those two mikes respectively. There were still some tube driven PA's still being in use, but even in earlier SS PA's, there was still a certain amount of distortion, but if the level of distortion got too high, it would emphasize the hard odd numbered overtones and sound really awful back then, and present day SS electronics are far different than it was back when this was filmed.
BW swings in a much more of a minimalist way, and he was also a HUGE influence on LW's playing and some of the stories Jimmy Rogers used to tell me about BW showing stuff to LW are legendary and LW often wouldn't give BW credit for anything.
From listening to both Walter's, I can clearly hear the conections beyond just swing, but in how they were in complete command over EVERYTHING they're doing and a big part of that is breath control.
The horn influence is much more easily apparent to hear in LW's playing in terms of phrasing, but with BW, it's more how a single note or even the double stops are being played rather than at times entire swatches of horn lines like you may hear from LW.
The one thing that both Walters do, yet at the same time, each one approaches things quite differently is that what they play ALWAYS GROOVES no matter what.
I learned quite a lot from the many times I hung out and watched him play in the 70's and I can still remember him saying that it's all in the wind, and what he meant by that was not by going full gale force with your breath, but more by being in complete control of things so you're not blowing yourself to death and getting winded so that everything you play sounds the same no matter what.
LW in his very earliest days also did tons of duos as well.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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kudzurunner
4426 posts
Dec 09, 2013
11:46 AM
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You're right about LW playing in duos, bbqbob. Specifically, he teamed up and traveled with Honeyboy Edwards, something many people don't know. Honeyboy says, "I'll never find another partner like that," or something like that.
And yes to the groove! Both players were masters of that.
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1847
1370 posts
Dec 09, 2013
11:52 AM
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is it just me?
does anyone else see an amp sitting on a chair?
specifically at 3:48
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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Kingley
3307 posts
Dec 09, 2013
11:59 AM
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1847 - Yes there is indeed an amp on a chair. It doesn't necessarily mean that Walter was plugged into it though. For me it's not a concern either way. As it's the content of Walter's performance that interests me. The stuff he's playing is pure gold and I couldn't care less whether it's amplified via a guitar amp or the PA.
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barbequebob
2398 posts
Dec 09, 2013
12:18 PM
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@1847 -- Never assume that when you see an amp on a chair that it automatically means that a harp player is using it because I've done tons of gigs where it was the guitar player putting their amps on a chair and I've done plenty of gigs where that's exactly what is happening.
Since this was filmed in Europe, often times what they're playing thru is rented equipment because the cost of flying in amplifiers (and drum kits or keyboard insturments like organs and Leslie cabinets) is incredibly cost prohibitive unless your in the very top 1% of the musical spectrum where what you make an entire tour that these blues men got paid for, you'd make that in a single night and 99% of bluesmen will never see that in 100 lifetimes.
Far too many harp players seem to think that many of these old masters were also gear freaks and trust met, from personal experience, most of them were not, including BW.
@kudzurunner -- Many players often don't take enough time to really learn how to make what they do groove at all, which often puts a big hurting on the way they approach things.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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1847
1371 posts
Dec 09, 2013
1:57 PM
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i am not assuming anything, it is entirely possible he is playing thru the pa
and i completely acknowledge that possibility
but the evidence points otherwise.
first it sounds amped i think i have a recording of this performance somewhere.
he is using two mics. one to sing thru and one for his harmonica
as jbone point out it appears to be high impendence
this is a tv show, they may possibly be the only band schd. to play
all the instruments are acoustic with the exception of the guitar
and he is on the opposite side of the stage.
i agree these masters were not as obsessed with gear
as most of us around here are LOL
i heard bb king say once, he did not know
what amp he would be playing thru till he walked on the stage!
he did clearly favor a gibson lab amp L5?
he has like 5 of them... well that is a LITTLE obsessive.
i do know if they want me to play on television
my harps will be tuned i will bring my best amp "a vintage champ"
and my best mic.
what is really sad, i went to lunch
at the bank were a dozen memorial candles burning
i was thinking maybe someone was killed at the atm
so i walked over, there was a picture of a Marine and his wife
he died protecting our right to free speech.
it made me realize, how insignificant some of these discussion are.
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i get a lot of request when i play my harmonica
"but i play it anyway"
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